Bryan Singer‘s next film won’t be connected to the X-Men universe. Deadline reports that Singer will instead focus on a remake of Jules Vern’s 20, 000 Leagues Under The Sea for 20th Century Fox. There had been talk of him potentially mulling over directing this, or the rumored next installment of the main X-Men saga. It’s not a terrible thing to give Singer a break, after making two X-Men movies back-to-back.
A while back, director David Fincher had been in talks with Disney to make his own 20,000 Leagues remake, Brad Pitt had been once attached to star. The material is in public domain, like most older stories, fair game for multiple studio projects. We might not see Disney pursue their film anytime soon, which gives Fox the upper hand here.
The question X-Men fans should be asking, who will direct the next main X-Men movie?
We learned that Fox had mapped-out an Untitled X-Men Film for release on July 13th, 2018, and it had been reported that X-Men film was going to be shooting sometime in 2017. However, Singer will be shooting this fall and in busy with post-production on 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea in 2017, making him unable to direct that film, whatever it turns out to be.
Wolverine 3, is expected for a March 3rd, 2017 release date, with word of it possibly start shooting at the end of April in New Orleans and New Mexico. This will likely means that director James Mangold and the post-production team will have plenty of time to make that release date.
Fox had nabbed June 2nd, 2017 for Fantastic Four 2, but removed the film from their schedule.
It’s expected that Doug Liman’s Gambit could takeover that spot, due to a delayed production, when Liman was hired to replace Rupert Wyatt. The spin-off had originally planned on release this October, but since it won’t shoot until March in New Orleans, it’s impossible it will be finished in that time. If Gambit takes that June slot, it really would only be going up against Sony’s Barbie movie, along with Amy Poehler and Will Farrell’s comedy The House from Warner Bros. The Fantastic Four sequel had also been dated previously for July 14th, 2017, before getting bumped-up to June, another potential date for Gambit’s move to 2017.
New Mutants, won’t be ready to go in 2017 in it’s current state, as it’s director Josh Boone will be making Stephen King’s Revival his next film. Another director could takeover Boone’s script, as we know Fox isn’t in the habit of waiting for directors.
Jeff Wadlow’s X-Force script needs a complete rewrite, and we do have some impressions that Tim Miller and Deadpool writers could be asked to tackle it. Miller has mentioned a desire to include Cable and X-23 in the sequel, turning Deadpool 2 into X-Force wouldn’t be a terrible move on their part. If that’s the case, it would make more sense another February release, which seemed to work well for Kingsman: The Secret Service and has seen some decent projected numbers for Deadpool.
Another possibility could be that if Deadpool is successful enough, they could ask Miller to even tackle the main lineup.
Matthew Vaughn might be an option, but since he’s now busy with the Kingsman sequel, it seems unlikely he’ll be able to make the film either. However, it’s set for release for June, 2017, and we assume that production would need to start between Spring and Summer 2017, giving Vaughn time to complete Kingsman 2. Not to mention plenty of time to script this X-Men film with writing partner Jane Goldman.
Matthew helped shape the First Class trilogy, having him do it again with a second film could help move things forward, whatever that looks like.
Hugh Jackman has made it clear that Wolverine 3 will be his last X-Men outing, but can director James Mangold say the same? I doubt he’d want to jump directly into another film so soon after his second Wolverine film, but making two X-Men films makes him a prime candidate to tackle the main team.
However, James took a lot of creative time to develop the script for upcoming Wolverine installment, I’m not sure he’d be willing to jump so quickly into a another huge project.
They could also look at other filmmakers, I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if they look at people that have worked with them, or that they considered them for other X-Men films in the past. Two names that come to mind is Joe Cornish (Section 6, Attack The Block, Ant-Man, Tintin) that had been linked as being in the mix for Gambit and Star Trek 3, and I also could see Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Dawn of The Planet of The Apes) moving from War For The Planet of The Apes to X-Men.
I’m sure we’ll start hearing more concrete plans from producers about the fate of the future of the main X-Men franchise, during the press rounds for Deadpool and X-Men: Apocalypse.
SOURCE: DEADLINE